Apagose el tizón, y pereció quien le encendió.
It’s a strange saying. Apparently, when enemies become friends, they chase down the one that sowed discord between them, or, at the very least, discover who it was. That has to mean that a third person lit the fire. And we have to wonder if that is how most friendships form. The enemy of my enemy is my friend and all that. Embers grow cold, and there will always be enmity in this world, but that is such a depressing thought… We will just feed a little bit of fire and friendship to our story, and let it unfold freely.
A woman gathers wood and lights a fire. That fire is her only company. Because she lives in a small cabin, in the heart of the woods, far, far away from everything and everybody else.
The woman stares at the flames. She sees them running in the fireplace as if they were a pup chasing its tail. She sees them tilting their head back and letting out one puff of smoke after another as if they were a wolf howling at the moon.
Finally the fire goes out. In the fireplace the embers grow cold. And the woman dies, sitting in front of the ashes. She dies of loneliness. Because she doesn’t have a friend to light another fire for her. She doesn’t have anyone to rekindle the flames, and let her live the rest of her days with only a memory for company.
The embers will grow cold. It hasn’t happened yet, and I am not looking forward to that day, but I can’t help how I feel. If my heart are the flames, then my blood is the smoke. Soot stains my vision. And I wish I could cry. I wish I had tears to dilute the color red. If only I could look at this friendship through the color pink like you do. But my heart doesn’t share its color with the smoke. It can’t. My heart needs every last drop of red to keep me alive. And maybe that is why I know that nothing lasts forever. That everything is a means to an end. And I just wish we could have built our friendship on something different. On something that didn’t leave a mark. Something light. Like air. Or laughter. Something that made the flames brighter. So that my heart could spare a little bit, just one drop, of red.
Flames aren’t wolves. I know that. But loneliness hurts, it makes my eyes sting, proving that the stars aren’t the only ones that can bring dreams to life. Do you see that wolf howling at the full moon in my hearth? The moon is lonely too. She is all alone up there, in the dark. But the wolves howl to brighten her life. To make her feel as remarkable, as noticeable as the stars. And that is what I need to soothe my sore soul. I can’t do anything about the darkness of this world. I don’t want to dispel my smoke. Life is ugly, and that is how I cling to it. Uglily. But it would hurt less if I had a wolf in my heart. A wolf howling for me. To turn my smoke full-moon white. Until someone noticed me. And I didn’t have to keep going through this ugly life alone.
What does it say about me? I stared into the flames, I almost lost myself, but all I found was a puppy chasing its tail. I was trying to get to know myself. I would have settled for a glimpse of my soul. Not the bright lies I use to keep my heart warm, but a glimpse of the truth. That truth that hurts, and mercifully disappears in a puff of smoke, before it can leave lasting scars. But the flames showed me a puppy, and I am disappointed in myself. Loneliness is my worst fear. It was never a secret. But I expected better of myself. Better lies. Not the meaningless fun I found. But maybe companionship was never meant to be more than a little bit of warmth and a smile to mask the pain. And I was just a fool for wanting the time we spent together to be something it could never be. Its own entity. Not something you did for the fun of it. Not something I did to stave off loneliness. But something we did out of love.
I have tried, but cold embers don’t do the trick. I have a good memory, but I can’t recreate the warmth, the happiness that’s missing from my life now. I can paint countless landscapes word for word in my hearth. I can bury the black of those embers in yellows. In oranges and reds. I don’t need to close my eyes, I can paint the places we shared in a heartbeat. I remember every word, every whisper and every scream, in technicolor. But I can’t do anything about the cold. What good are memories if they can’t breach the night? The smoke stole my warmth. Everything I felt. Everything I need to feel again. It’s out of reach. Like a myriad of stars. And remembering only adds smoke to the night. Exacerbating the distance. And my loneliness.